


Ball Check Valve

by partypaprika



Category: The Plumber's Mate Mystery Series - JL Merrow
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/pseuds/partypaprika
Summary: It all began with Storm George. As a proud Englishman, I’m well accustomed to rain—it barely qualifies as a day in St. Albans if it hasn’t rained at some point. What I wasn’t all too prepared for was a full-fledged, batten down the hatches storm—unless you count avidly watching the news during a storm and feeling a ground swell of sympathy for the poor bastards who were caught up in the latest. Except that this time, the bastard was me.
Relationships: Tom Paretski/Phil Morrison
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Ball Check Valve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eris_historia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eris_historia/gifts).



It all began with Storm George. As a proud Englishman, I’m well accustomed to rain—it barely qualifies as a day in St. Albans if it hasn’t rained at some point. What I wasn’t all too prepared for was a full-fledged, batten down the hatches storm—unless you count avidly watching the news during a storm and feeling a ground swell of sympathy for the poor bastards who were caught up in the latest. Except that this time, the bastard was me.

Storm George came in like one of those lost weekends that Gary always fondly reminisced about and thrashed St. Albans like it knew none of us were ready. Georgie-boy really left his mark, blowing down trees left and right and cancelling all scheduled plans for 48 hours, including what had meant to be a Sunday dinner with Mum and Dad. Phil wasn’t all too torn up about that part.

I whistled low when Phil and I emerged onto the street in the morning, rubbish and debris strewn about in that very Hollywood, apocalypse film kind of way. Phil’s mouth was set grimly and I followed his line of site to where one of those trees from across the way that I’d always vaguely categorized as decorative had settled itself onto our roof in a distinctly undecorative-like way.

I whistled low. “Well, I guess that you can’t say that it wasn’t a real storm.”

Sharon from number twelve saw up standing in the street and hurried over, her face set in a frown. “What a sorry state,” she said mournfully. I couldn’t have agreed more. “Do you know how long it’ll take to fix?”

I’m not sure why everyone thinks that just because you’re in one trade means that you know all of them, but just because I can fix a leak from a pipe doesn’t mean that I can fix a gaping hole in the ceiling. “Sorry, love,” I said apologetically. “Haven’t a clue.”

Later, after we’d notified the freeholder and been informed, in turn, that we’d have to out of the flat for at least a few days while they assessed the damage and hopefully fixed the roof, I was moping around the bedroom, half-heartedly packing a suitcase. Phil, of course, had already neatly packed up his clothes that he was taking and was puttering around on his computer.

“It could be relatively minor,” I said as I threw a few more shirts into the suitcase.

“Or we could wake up with the roof around our ears,” Phil said. “Or not wake up at all.” I hated when he was right. “Aha,” Phil said and then reached out for me and pulled me in so I was half-sitting on his lap. “What do you think of this place?”

I glanced at the screen. It was one of those holiday rental sites and Phil had picked out a cottage, more of a manor really, that was posh beyond my wildest dreams, although clearly very much in Phil’s. Fact’s being what they were, it was probably Phil’s wet dream. “Are you sure that they let oiks like me in a place like that?”

“That’s the beauty of a holiday rental,” Phil said. “They don’t care as long as we give them money.”

“Won’t it be a bit weird?” I said.

Phil gave me a look. “Weirder than our roof falling in on us?”

“I mean, wouldn’t it be better just to get some hotel or somewhat? Rather than be creeping around some toff’s furniture.”

Phil gave me a very patient look. “They rent these out full time. No one really lives there. And it’ll be nice to have a place with a kitchen if we’re going to be there for a few days. Unless cooking your own food is too good for the likes of you.” He nuzzled my neck. “It’d be nice to be somewhere with a little space for Merlin and Arthur to prowl around and be good to get a change of scenery.”

The nuzzling started turning hot with intent and I let Phil pull me back against the bed. In the end, he made his point very convincingly—we were doing it for Arthur and Merlin’s sake. Yes, that was it.

Phil and I drove out separately to the house, or the cottage as I’d taken to calling it, located in the middle of nowhere Newford’s Bridge. The satnav had almost had an aneurysm trying to find it amidst all the cows and country roads, but when Phil’s silver VW pulled up right behind me, he looked as pleased as punch. I decided to keep my snarky comments to myself. 

The house felt like something right out of those period pieces on BBC that my mum always watches—red brick with a chimney and a charming little gate that beckoned us in. It only needed a thatched roof to really feel like it was trying to recreate that idyllic countryside experience and I half expected to see some sheep coming over the next hill.

The booking had come with instructions on how to get in, so Phil went to go figure that out while I went and got the cat carriers from my van. Merlin and Arthur had been surprisingly well-behaved on the drive over and I was a little suspicious. Even though the listing billed itself as being pet friendly, I was a little concerned about what they might inflict on some poor pensioner’s furniture, despite what Phil might say about no one living there.

Inside, the furniture looked pretty resilient—and also just as nice as the exterior. They’d done a nice job with the place if I did say so myself. And judging by the proprietary air that Merlin adopted as soon as I’d let him out, the cats were also pretty pleased with their new digs.

The first night in the cottage was a little weird—it felt downright unnatural not to hear any cars going by and sod’s law, we’d realized that we’d forgotten to buy eggs earlier. Here in Newford’s Bridge, there was no corner off-license that we could run to. But it was also nice. It felt like a private world, just for me and Phil. I could kind of see the appeal.

The next day, we got the official estimate from the contractor—an eye-watering amount that thankfully was the freeholder’s insurance’s problem as well as—“Two weeks?” I moaned to Phil, my mouth full of toast. I already missed my poky flat and I was sceptical of all the extra space. 

“Better than two months,” Phil said.

And to be fair, it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t love the extra drive and my van looked extremely out of place in front of what could have passed for the backdrop for A Christmas Carol, but it was nice to have a change of scenery. Nice to feel a little secluded, like a mini-vacation. Not to worry about how much noise we were making. Until the body.

I’d spent most of the afternoon replacing some piping for Mrs. L, one of those young yummy mummies who always wore yoga pants although I’d never seen any evidence that she actually did yoga. I couldn’t fault her too much though—she’d always been at the ready with a cuppa and choccy biccies and she never complained about the bill. The pipes had been a bit of a mess and I was looking forward to coming home and taking a shower, getting the muck off of me, and putting my feet up to have a beer. Maybe get Phil to meet me for a pint at the Duck and Grouse, which wasn’t too far. We’d been at the cottage for a little over a week at that point and I’d started to think affectionately of returning to it each evening.

Something didn’t quite feel right when I got home though, the cottage feeling dirtier than I remembered and it almost made me feel squeamish. I wrote it off as the muck that I’d accumulated from Mrs. L’s until I emerged from the shower and realized that I could sense the sense of wrongness in the cottage. I didn’t really want to follow it—I wanted to have my beer and pretend that everything was fine in the world, but the trail was too loud, making it impossible for me to ignore.

I started from the bathroom, my hair still wet, and followed the trail through the cottage, past the kitchen and the dining room until I got to the mudroom in the back. A bloke was propped up just inside the door, his eyes were closed as if he was sleeping, but I knew, even as I put out my hand to shake him and then feel for a pulse against that clammy skin, that he was dead.

More than that, I knew exactly who he was—Reece Wells. Another of my childhood tormentors. And a member of Phil’s old gang.

After taking a couple of deep breaths and very consciously not looking at what appeared to be a knife wound to his stomach or the blood on the ground, I called Phil. He thankfully picked up on the second ring, just as I was debating what I could possibly leave on his voice mail (could I even leave a message?).

“You read my mind,” Phil said. “Fancy a dinner somewhere?”

“As much as I do, I think that we’ve got bigger problems on our hands.” My tone of voice must have given something away because Phil’s voice immediately went all business.

“Are you alright?” he asked. He was probably imagining all of the times that I’d ended up banged and bruised in the hospital. In that sense, I couldn’t have been more fine.

“Do you remember Reece Wells?” I asked. I couldn’t see Phil over the phone, but I imagine that he sat up even more stiffly.

“He was a real prick,” Phil said softly. “Yeah, I remember him.”

“Well, he’s here,” I said, my voice rising a little. “In our mudroom. And he’s dead.”

With Phil on the way, I next turned to the police. Hoping that Dave hadn’t headed home for the day, I put in a call to him and he sighed when he heard what I had to say. “Bodies follow you bloody everywhere,” he said. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes.”

“Oi,” I said. “It’s not like I choose for them to show up. But,” and I closed my eyes here, wishing that I didn’t have to tell him this, “I have to tell you that I knew this guy.”

“You knew him?” Dave sighed now, long and drawn out. “Well, I guess we’ll need to do this especially by the books. Do not do anything until we get there—don’t touch the body, don’t move it, nothing.”

“Aye aye,” I said with more confidence than I felt. In fact, it came out far more steady than I felt as well. I was vaguely queasy and hoping that I could get away from the mud room before I lost it all over the man who’d recently popped his clogs, even if it was one that I disliked as much as Reece.

Reece had been one of those boys who was cruel just to be cruel. As much as Phil had been a complete wanker to me, Reece had been worse—underhanded, always hiding behind the next corner and he’d delighted in making anyone miserable. The more miserable the better.

More than one time, I’d found my clothing freezing cold and wet after physical education and either had to wear my sweaty clothing for the rest of the day or sit through class, shivering and bloody miserable. It had been Reece each time.

I tried not to think about Reece or who he’d been to me as I waited for the plodders in black to make their grand entrance, although even a room away, I couldn’t help but sense the wrongness around me. Thankfully, Dave and his mates showed up real quick and I was relegated to the couch, Dave taking notes, while the rest of the lot descended on the mud room, presumably to check the deceased and dust for fingerprints, that sort of thing.

As everyone bustled around me, equipment out and questions coming in at one hundred miles per hour, it felt weirdly like one of those old country murder mysteries and I half expected Inspector Poirot to jump out of a closet with his little moustache.

Dave went through the usual suite of questions—how had I found him? My typical unrequested gift. Had I had any contact with the deceased lately? I hadn’t seen him since school (and good riddance to that, although I didn’t say that part out loud). Did I know of any reason why he would be here? No clue. And on and on it went.

Eventually Phil showed up and Dave glared at him for good measure. By that point, one of the detectives had come over and whispered something in Dave’s ear. Dave looked extra hard at Phil at that.

“Right, I think that we’ll need Phil to come down to the station for some questions,” Dave said, sounding even less pleased than normal.

I looked back at Phil but Phil’s face gave nothing away per usual.

“Is that necessary?” I asked.

“By the book,” Dave said. He turned towards Phil. “Did you know that Reece Wells was the owner of this house?” he asked.

Phil’s eyes momentarily widened before he went back to his habitual granite expression. “I didn’t—we rented it through a website.”

Dave made a harumphing noise. “We’ll go through it all when we have a chance to sit down in a more formal setting.”

I started to say something but Phil held up a hand. “Fine,” he said. “We can do it at the station.”

I would like to say that it was solely solidarity that motivated me to go with Phil down to the nick for questions, but I’d be lying. It was solidarity and the thought of staying by myself in a house that felt as greasy and wrong as the cottage now did. So, Phil and I packed up a very displeased Merlin and a confused Arthur into their carriers and set out for the station. 

I dropped Phil off and then gave my mum a quick call.

“Hello, Tom,” my mother said when she picked up. Her voice was warm and welcoming and for a minute, I felt about five years old again and about to start blubbering everywhere. I mentally shook myself.

“Hi Mum,” I said. “Can I ask a favour of you? Can you watch Arthur and Merlin for maybe a day or two?”

“Well, yes, of course,” my mother said, sounding faintly puzzled. “But why?”

“It’s—er—a bit of a long story,” I said. “We can’t stay any longer in the vacation rental that Phil got and I’ve got to finish up some things. While we’re trying to find a new place to stay, I don’t want to keep dragging them to new places.” There, that didn’t sound like a complete lie and it wasn’t not the truth.

Mum tutted, like she knew that I was hiding something important, but she didn’t press me further. She and my dad even came out to help me unload Merlin and Arthur and I could tell that they were both curious as to why I was driving Phil’s car, but neither of them said a word. I don’t know if I’d ever been more thankful.

When I got back to the station, Phil was still nowhere to be found. Presumably he was still having a nice tongue wagging with the good detectives, so I settled myself on one of those uncomfortable chairs in the main area near the front area to wait.

I have always wondered where places get such uncomfortable waiting chairs—it’s like the police, dentists and bank branches all got together to buy them in bulk for their offices. My hip doesn’t love the chair but I didn’t want to make myself a nuisance, so I contended myself with a little walk every fifteen minutes or so.

After I’d been there for almost an hour, one of the sergeants came up to me with a steaming cup of tea. “You looked a little cold,” he said when I gratefully accepted the cup.

“Ta very much,” I said.

The sergeant looked down at his feet and then back at him, as if he was gathering his courage. “Are you the one that—er—finds people? Dead people?”

I flashed him a brief smile and briefly wished that I had decided to stay in the car to wait for Phil. He would have found that just as romantic, right? “Yeah, that’s me,” I said cautiously.

He started peppering me with questions that I tried to deflect. Thankfully, Phil and Dave emerged before the sergeant could get too far along and their combined glares were enough to get the sergeant to straighten up and look at me apologetically.

Phil didn’t say anything when we got into his VW Golf and for a long minute, he gripped the steering wheel and glared straight ahead. I reached over and put my hand gently on his arm. I had a million things that I wanted to ask but I kept my lips shut together, tighter than any lock they might have down at the HM Treasury, and after a long silence, the tension eased out of Phil’s body and he put a hand over mine.

We sat there like that, Phil’s thumb gently running over my hand, until he sighed. “Well, the good news is that they agree with me that I have very little motive to kill Reece Wells.”

“But not no motive,” I said.

Phil grunted. “Him and me knowing each other way back when. We didn’t exactly part on good terms. And he did own the cottage.”

“He moved up in the world,” I said. When I’d known Reece, way back when, he’d been living on the council estates with his family. While the cottage wasn’t a Grade II listed house, it still was pretty nice. He’d apparently gone into a job that had more of an upside than plumbing.

“I probably have more a motive than you do,” I said. “What with how we got on in school.”

Phil went even more granite-like at the reminder of what had happened back in school and then he shook himself. “Don’t think that they’ve forgotten that. The only reason that you weren’t given the usual police hospitality is because of your mate, Dave. They’ve still got you in their sights.”

I sighed. Neither one of us said anything for another minute. Dave had told us that there would be a police escort at the house for the next few days—we would have to stop by and get the cats and our belongings. And then we’d have to find a new place to stay.

I really didn’t want to think about it for at least a little bit.

“I could go for a pint,” Phil said just as I said, “Fancy a dinner at the Duck and Grouse?” It turned out that Phil didn’t want to think about it for a bit as well.

Phil looked over at me and his face went soft. He leaned over to me and pressed a soft kiss against my lips. “Absolutely.”

Phil, constitutionally incapable of having a meal without red meat, ordered the steak and ale pie, while I went for the fish and chips, telling myself that it was at least a little healthier than steak. Unless I started joining Phil at the gym more often, I really needed to watch what I was putting in me. But, I also felt like I deserved something delicious after the day that I’d had.

“So, who do you think had it out for old Reece?” I asked, once we’d gotten our food and were half a pint in.

“Beats me,” Phil said. “We didn’t exactly keep up after high school. Most of the guys in that group and I fell out after it came out that I was dating Mark.”

Ah, the mysterious cheating Mark. My favourite subject. But if Phil could manfully not react about my experiences in school, then I could at least attempt to do the same.

“I guess I know what I’m doing tonight,” Phil said and then started digging into his pie.

“So are you going to officially take this case on?” I asked.

“Seems like it,” Phil said into his food. “Like you weren’t also going to do some poking around. I saw the gleam in your eye.”

“Oi, it doesn’t count as poking around if he bought it right where I’m sleeping!”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Phil said, but he was smiling and the queasy feeling in my chest loosened just a bit. 

After we finished eating, we lingered for a bit, neither one of us in a hurry, but eventually my guilt over Arthur and Merlin starving to death in a semi-strange place won out.

When we got to the cottage, the nice sergeant at the door informed me that they’d already packed up our stuff for us. “We don’t want to risk any of the evidence getting contaminated,” she said sheepishly, like she hadn’t just improved my evening tremendously. I didn’t have to go back in the cottage! I could have cheered.

That night, Phil and I found ourselves in a small hotel on the outskirts of St. Albans, our bags just opened enough to pull out essentials.

“You take me to all the nicest places,” I said, snuggling against Phil as we watched some reruns of The Great British Bake Off.

“Well, I suppose you were right,” Phil said. I perked up. “The vacation rental turned out to be a shit idea in the end.”

“Oi,” I said, resting my head against Phil’s chest. He brought up an arm to hold me tight. “I actually really liked it up. Well, up until the massively dead bloke from our past. I would do it again.”

“Really?” Phil said sceptically.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I still like the idea of room service, but I could probably be persuaded.”

“On the good news front, I talked with the contractor—he said that the flat is habitable again, although they’re still doing a bit of the roof work.”

If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have cheered. “Oh, thank the lord,” I said fervently. I doubted that anyone up there was listening to me, but if they were, I was thankful indeed.

“Thank your husband,” Phil said fondly, “since he convinced the contractor to let us go back.”

I pushed myself and cupped Phil’s face, kissing him with everything that I had. When we pulled apart, both of us were panting. “Oh, I will,” I said and moved right back in.

The next morning, I dropped by my parents to pick up Arthur and Merlin before my first appointment of the day.

My dad greeted me at the front door, Merlin and Arthur already in their carriers and watching me suspiciously. “Good to see you, son,” Dad said and then manfully patted me on the back. “What was the emergency about?”

“Er—well,” I cast about for some way to not tell him, but if I tried to lie about it, it would inevitably get back to them and then I’d really be in hot water. “We found a dead body near the cottage that Phil and I were staying out. It didn’t look like he’d gone off peacefully either. So, the police took it over as a crime scene.”

Dad’s eyes went gratifyingly wide. “Well, let’s not tell your mother,” he said eventually.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

I dropped off Merlin and Arthur along with my messily packed bag at the flat. As soon as I opened the cat carrier, Merlin and Arthur immediately jumped out, both of them bolting for dark parts unknown. I couldn’t really blame them. I, too, wanted to go and burrow in the flat, luxuriate in just how much I had missed it.

As much as I would have liked to spend the day in bed and investigating Reece, plumbing mishaps wait for no man and unless I wanted to lose a lot of business, I had a full day of appointments to keep. I barely had enough time to down a Sainsbury sandwich in my van for lunch before moving onto my next appointment.

I tried texting Phil between appointments, but my phone battery had been on the blink and, by sod’s law, it died somewhere between an appointment in Tyttenhanger and another one on Glenferrie Road, just after I’d texted asking if there’d been any updates.

I gritted my teeth and reminded myself to either bring my portable charger next time or make sure that it was fully charged up before I left in the morning. Not much that I could do otherwise. Instead, I just counted down the minutes until I could go home.

By the time that I got home, I was practically vibrating with curiosity. Merlin and Arthur were nowhere to be found, probably still angry at me for abandoning them to my loving parents, where I’m sure that they’d been fed delicious meals beyond their wildest imaginations.

Phil had beaten me home and was on the phone, probably with a paying client, so I went into the kitchen to see what we had that was still good and could be made into an edible dinner.

I started putting together a risotto, marinating a chicken from the freezer and sticking that in the oven as well. By the time that Phil got off his call, the kitchen was smelling quite nice. Phil made an appreciative sound as he came into the kitchen and then wrapped his arms around me as I checked on the risotto.

“Smells delicious,” he said, his chest rumbling against my back. I leaned back into him, letting him surround me and closed my eyes.

“Yes, it does. The food as well,” I said. Phil grinned at that and then leaned down to capture my mouth in a kiss. By the time that I came back to myself, the risotto was in danger of overcooking and I hastily removed it from the heat and checked the temperature of the chicken as well.

We had dinner out in front of the tv, although the tv stayed off. Old habits, I guess. “What skeletons have you found in Reece Wells’ closet?” I said.

Phil sighed and pulled his feet off the coffee table. He snagged his laptop and dragged it over, opening it up and presumably pulling up a file.

“I can tell you that he’s had his fingers in more than one pie,” Phil said. “He’d gotten involved in a bookmaker’s shop in St. Albans as a part owner. He’d done some work in debt collection—and not entirely on the up and up there.”

“Plenty of unsavoury types there,” I said, leaning my head against Phil’s shoulder.

“He’s been married and divorced—apparently he threw over his wife in a very public manner with his new girlfriend.”

“How do you know these things?” I asked.

Phil smirked. “Like I’ve said, it’s a trade secret.”

“So where do we start?”

“Who said that we are doing anything?” Phil said. “Last time I checked, whenever you seem to get involved, we also seem to end up with a trip to the A&E.”

“Oi, the same could be said for you. Or do you not remember six weeks of liquid meals?” I retorted. Phil shuddered at that and then put his arm around me.

“Well, I’ve called his mum and arranged to come by to pay my respects, as an old school chum,” Phil said.

“Convenient,” I agreed. “Two of his old school chums. We were all so close.”

“Jesus,” Phil said, closing his eyes. “Have I mentioned that I was a complete and total prick?” I kissed him softly in response to that and then rapidly left the tender kisses behind for something far hotter and harder (in more ways than one).

We made it to the bedroom just in the nick of time and afterwards, I lay with my head on Phil’s chest, basking in the feel of Phil surrounding me.

“I’m going to try and go by the bookmaker’s this week as well,” Phil said. “Although if the police are even halfway competent, they’ll also be doing the same.”

Phil had arranged it so that we would drop by Mrs. Wells’ right around tea time to give our condolences. She lived in one of the flats on Vasley Heath. I hadn’t spent much time there, but my recollection of it had been dingy and not well-maintained, which held true. There was some greenery around the estate, as if trying to put on a show of good cheer, but it wasn’t altogether very convincing.

We took the stairs up to the second floor, me holding a bouquet of flowers that I’d grabbed from the florist on Hatfield. Phil seemed to know where he was going, so I followed his lead down a corridor until he stopped in front of a door and politely rang the bell. He’d clearly been here before and I wondered just how close he and Reece had been in school. After a minute, the door opened to reveal a smartly dressed older woman in a pantsuit, her hair pulled back into one of those fancy buns that women seem to wear.

The woman’s face softened when she saw us and her eyes went a little watery. “Phil. Phil Morrison. I remember you from back when you and Reece went to school together.”

Phil cleared his throat and then nodded. “Mrs. Wells. It’s been a long time.”

“It has,” Mrs. Wells said and then a few tears slipped down her face, but she quickly brought her hand up to wipe them away. She forced together a smile. “It’s so nice of you to visit.”

“This is my partner, Tom Paretski,” Phil said and I nodded at Mrs. Wells.

“It’s nice to meet you—I wish under better circumstances,” I said and handed her the bouquet.

“Why don’t you come in,” she said. “Can I get you some tea?” The poor lady barely seemed like she was holding it together, so I volunteered to make some tea while she and Phil sat down. Phil flashed me a grateful look.

While the water was heating, I realized what Phil had actually probably wanted me to do, aside from make nice with Mrs. Wells. I popped my head out of the kitchen into the living room where Phil and Mrs. Wells sat. “Do you mind if I use the loo while the water’s heating up?” I asked.

“Of course, please help yourself, love,” Mrs. Wells said. “It’s just along there, third door.” She motioned to a hallway leading back into the flat from the living room.

I quietly walked along the hallway, feeling for anything that dinged my awareness. There was a strong sense of guiltiness coming from a bedroom next to the bathroom, the door adjacent, so I stepped inside and let the trail led me to a vanity that had probably last seen good days when Princess Di was married to Prince Charles.

On the left side of the vanity was one of those makeup organizers that looked mindbogglingly complicated but that wasn’t what drew my attention. Instead, it was the stack of bills on the right side. I flipped through them—they were second and third notices for the electricity and council estate services before it looked like they’d gotten paid off.

I probed the guilt—it felt more substantial than normal guilt about not being able to pay the bills, but I wasn’t sure that I could put my finger on why it was different.

There was another hidden item in the room, I followed that to a nightstand and grimacing at what I was likely to find, I opened the drawer. It could have been worse, I suppose. It was a box of condoms. Right then.

I couldn’t feel anything else in the room—at least nothing more the usual sort of secrets—and so I crept back out and almost ran smack dab into the broad back of a man.

“Er, sorry, do you know where the loo is?” I asked, hoping that I didn’t look as guilty as I felt. The man whirled around—he was about my age and he put Phil to shame in the gym department. This man looked like he ate bricks for breakfast, along with half of a barnyard. For once, he didn’t cast a shadow over me. He had an inch or two on me, although he had presence in spades, enough that I tried to think about what my emergency plan was if he realized that I’d been skulking about.

He glanced at me, his dark eyes narrowing. “Oi, who are you?”

“I’m Tom Paretski,” I said, holding out a hand and hoping that my smile was more winsome than it felt. “I’m Phil Morrison’s partner. Also, trying to find the bathroom.”

He jerked his head down the hallway. “That door over there.”

“Are you one of Reece’s brothers?” I asked, figuring that I should probably try to actually hit the investigative angle since there was someone right in front of me. Not for the first time, I thanked the universe that I enjoyed my actual job.

“Hardly,” the man said but didn’t elaborate.

I tried again. “A friend?”

The man snorted. “As much as Reece had friends, I suppose. I knew him through his ex. Christ, I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but he sure didn’t make it easy on himself if that’s the case.”

“Sure,” I agreed, as if I too had some intimate knowledge of Reece that wasn’t fifteen years out of date.

“How did you know him?” he asked, more than a little suspiciously.

“I was a mate of his back in school.” Mate was overselling it, but it was enough to hold some amount of water. He kept glaring at me, so I quickly excused myself and then did pay a visit to the bathroom.

When I got back out, I wanted to investigate the other two rooms opposite the bathroom, which had probably once been Reece’s and his brothers’ rooms, but I could see the man from earlier standing at the edge of the front room. He had a direct line of sight to where I stood, so I gave it up for the moment and trooped back to the kitchen to pour the tea before returning to Phil and Mrs. Wells.

“Lovely place, Mrs. Wells,” I said. She gave me a wan smile as she gratefully took the cup from me.

“I was just talking with Mrs. Wells and Reece’s mate, John, about Reece’s shop,” Phil said. “She was telling me that his partner has taken over managing it.” By which, Phil meant that I should sit down, keep my gob firmly closed and let him do his business.

Mrs. Wells nervously rubbed her left arm. “I don’t know much about Reece’s business—he was very good at it, but I don’t have much of a head for it. I told Reece that gambling wasn’t a good way to do business—dangerous, I told him. Although it seemed a little better than what he’d been doing before. But he and Ryan were thick as thieves about it and they seemed to do alright. Well, alright until this.” She started tearing up, her hands coming up to her eyes and I cast about for a box of tissues, pressing one into her hand.

“Oh, thank you, love,” she said tearfully. “I can barely hold myself together.”

“So you think that someone from the bookmaking shop might have done this?” I asked. I mean, that’s where I had immediately assumed, like something out of a lurid film about London’s seedy underbelly. In this scenario, Phil was the American-style private eye, a fedora jauntily placed on his head as he sat at his desk in a dimly lit room in the city.

“Must have done,” Mrs. Wells said. “Who else would have done it? It must have been over money. I told him it was a bad idea.”

I risked a glance over at the man—John—and the expression on his face said that there were probably plenty of people who could have done it and probably only some of them would have needed money as an excuse.

We didn’t get much more information out of Mrs. Wells—mainly information about the funeral service which we promised to come for. When we got out to Phil’s car, Phil looked thoughtfully at the steering wheel for a few minutes before pulling out.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Not sure yet,” Phil said. “Did you find anything?”

“Not especially,” I said. “A stack of notices about bills and then confirmation that they’d been paid off recently. And an open box of condoms. Mrs. Wells was seeing someone or someones.”

“Well, at least the second one is easy enough. She’s seeing John.”

I looked over at Phil sceptically, but he didn’t look like he was trying to get one over on me. He was still looking out the windshield.

“Good on Mrs. W,” I said. “Really good for her. That man must spend half of his life in a gym.” Phil did shoot me a sharp look at that, in what felt like a gratifyingly quick manner.

“Do I have something to be worried about?” Phil asked, although his lips were threatening to quirk up.

“I can’t say that I’ve ever really wanted to date a bloke who could lift me over their head,” I said. “It’s ok if you’re a little on the weaker side.” I patted his leg affectionately and before I could say “Bob’s your uncle”, Phil managed to move out of the driver’s seat and on to my lap caging me in. I all but melted against him, his chest firm against mine. He may not have been able to lift me over his head, but Phil was no slouch in the muscles department.

Phil kissed me once hard and then pulled back, leaving me panting ever so slightly in my seat. “Oi, you can’t just leave in this condition,” I said, half-heartedly, adjusting myself in my pants.

Phil didn’t say anything to that, just turned the motor on and pulled out of the car park. I sighed.

We drove back in to St. Albans proper, Phil parking near to the high street. The high street itself was busy, people dashing to the market after work, people spilling out of the pubs with football playing on the screens inside. I could have gone for a pint myself, but I followed Phil’s lead as we wound through the crowds and stopped in front of a shop that looked that almost any other betting shop that I’d ever seen. It had a bright yellow sign at the top where the words “Mate’s Bet” were in white, all capital letters. The windows were covered by bright blue signs that proudly proclaimed that there was up to a 20% bonus for some type of football related bet.

I’d never actually been inside a betting shop before. Sod’s law, if I was going to place a bet, I’d be sure to lose instantly. Betting had never had much of an appeal for me.

Phil pushed the door open and I was instantly overwhelmed with an overload of colours and screens. It was almost like being in a sports pub, screens lining the wall and little tables scattered around the screens. There were more than a few people perched at tables, avidly watching the screens, only some of which actually featured sports and some of which just featured fluctuating tables of names, presumably relating to bets.

It was definitely better lit than I’d always imagined. And less film-style gangsters hanging about the place. Everyone there looked normal, like they’d just come from their normal 9-5.

I imagine that I looked a little wide-eyed with surprise, so Phil gently pressed his hand against my back to push me forward to the counter where a woman was waiting.

“We’re here to see Jeremy. He’s expecting us.” Phil said. The woman smiled at us and gestured towards a side door.

“Head on through the back,” she said. “His office is right inside there.”

We followed her instructions, finding a small office with a man sitting inside looking at something that looked suspiciously like a spreadsheet open on his computer. He looked pretty smartly dressed, a tie and a button-down shirt tucked into slacks and his hair neatly styled. Not at all how I would have imagined a bookmaker.

“Phil Morrison?” the man asked, his voice a little higher than I was expecting.

Phil nodded. “And this is my partner, Tom Paretski.”

“Nice to meet you,” the man said. “Please come in—I know it’s a bet of a mess, but—er—” he cast about the room and then managed to pull two chairs where they’d been hiding in the corner. “So you’ve been hired to look into Reece’s death?”

Phil nodded and I forced myself to not look at him. We’d only been hired if you counted that we’d done the hiring ourselves. But, I guess it would have looked odd if two men had shown up just demanding answers about Reece’s death otherwise.

“It came as a bit of a shock,” Jeremy said, he bit his lip a bit nervously.

“Absolutely,” I said reassuringly.

“So no one in particular that you thought of when you had heard that it happened?” Phil asked.

Jeremy sighed. “I mean, sure, there are plenty of people who would have been fine with Reece being dead, but not a lot that I can imagine who would take on the work to do it.”

“When you say that there are a lot of people who would have been fine with Reece being dead, who are those people?” Phil asked.

Jeremy bit his lip again. “I mean—Reece didn’t exactly endear himself to other people. He wasn’t—how do I put it?—afraid to let someone know what he thought of them or use them to get his way. He was good at reading people and getting things done—not great at getting along with them. But, let’s see, I mean, to start with, his ex-wife, Nadia. Nadia probably would have been happy to kill him if she knew how to get away with it. She’s not afraid to take action and when Reece brought his new girlfriend, Jennifer, around for one of our get-togethers—I thought that we’d have to get the authorities involved.”

“Was she always like that?” Phil asked.

Jeremy laughed. “Only when Reece was involved. He cheated on her, rubbed it in her face and then flaunted his lady around for a year before he got tired of that.”

“Was Reece like that at work too?” Phil asked.

Jeremy shrugged. “Yes,” he said, drawing it out. “Nothing like what he did to the women he dated. But that one could carry a grudge.”

“Anybody have problems with him here? Customers? Employees?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Nothing that I knew of. Or at least nothing that rose to the level of being a problem problem.”

“No customers that fell too far behind or felt like they may have been cheated out of their winnings?” Phil asked.

“Just like I told the police, we run a clean shop. We didn’t have anything out of the ordinary going on.”

I looked down at my phone. “Do you mind if I step outside for a mo?” I asked Phil and Jeremy. They both nodded so I let them get back at it and I slipped out of the room.

There were a few other doors down the hallway—one was clearly labelled as a restroom and one had been left twigged open enough that I could see that it was a staff kitchen. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the strum of fear coursing through me that someone would discover what I was up to.

It was hard—harder than I’d expected—there were so many streams of guilt and secrecy coming from the main room. I’m sure that most of the people who came in through Mate’s Bet door were fine, upstanding people who weren’t doing anything wrong, but enough of them had been people who had felt that they were doing was wrong or needed to be kept a secret and it had overlaid the entire store.

I focused harder, trying to think of Reece, hoping that anything that related to him might feel a little different. And then—there—I felt a tugging, into a back room just opposite the kitchen. I moved back there quickly, checking briefly in the kitchen to make sure that I wasn’t about to be ambushed and then carefully turned the doorknob.

Little lockers lined one side of the room—no one was in there, so I took a deep breath and went for it. The trail led me to a locker, thankfully not one of those that required a lock. More of a small cupboard really and it looked like it was just for employees to change clothes.

The one that I opened had Reece’s name on a little tag above it and I opened it, not sure what I would find. Inside, I saw a change of clothes and shoes and I rifled through them. No, that wasn’t it. I felt around the back of the locker and my fingers brushed against a small piece of paper. I grabbed it and stuffed it in my pocket.

I had just closed the locker and stepped back towards the door when it banged open to reveal a young woman, starting to put up her hair, who jumped when she saw me.

“Sorry, love,” I said quickly. “Just looking for the loo.”

“Oh, my heart,” she said. “You scared me. The one at the end of the hall.”

“Ta,” I said, giving her a smile that made her dimple in return. I removed myself as quickly as possible and then, actually visited the facilities in order to give myself plausible deniability. When I finished, I wasn’t sure that I would actually be any help to Phil in the office, so I decided to try another tack. I went back out to the main room where there was still the young woman at the desk. She smiled at me, the edges of her smile a little worn, I couldn’t help but notice.

“It got a little too business-like for me in there,” I said, smiling at her. “I don’t know how you do this, all those numbers.”

She laughed. “Oh, me neither. I forgot all maths just as soon as I left school. I’m lucking if I can count to three. Luckily, they just need me to ring up customers and take bets. All those odds are done by the computer. Although, between you and me, the computer doesn’t always get it right.”

“Yeah?” I asked. “I thought that those things were guaranteed to always be right and get you to the moon and back.”

She shrugged. “I think that Jeremy and Reece—or rather just Jeremy—would rather that the computer was right just a bit more, if you know what I’m saying.”

So, Mate’s Bet wasn’t doing all too well. Very interesting. “Has it always been like that?”

“For a while, I thought I was going to have to get a new job,” she said. “And this one is so convenient. My mum’s always on me to go and do something with myself, but this suits me. I did waitressing before this and at least on this side of the desk, no one is doing anything improper. They started doing cuts and I was just praying that it wasn’t me who was made redundant.”

“That would have been terrible,” I said. “I’m glad it turned around.”

“I hope it did. But the goss is that Reece bailed out the shop. Or at least he bailed out Jeremy. I will never understand Reece. He probably did it at the last moment just so he could rub it in Jeremy’s face.”

She seemed to realize just who she was talking about and looked at me apologetically, so I rushed forward. “I understand—it’s always so surprising when it’s someone you know. And without any warning.”

“Exactly,” she agreed, her eyes opened wide.

We were still chatting when Phil emerged from the back of the shop and he looked a little disgruntled to see the two of us laughing as I recounted one of my latest plumbing adventures to Hannah (as I had now found out) that had involved Mr. and Mrs. P with a new cat in their possession.

He didn’t quite glare at me, but I used the opportunity to wink at Hannah, who giggled and wished me a good day before I joined him.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Phil grumbled.

“You wouldn’t want it any other way,” I said confidently.

We compared notes in the car. “I was able to find out that they may not be doing so well, at least according to Hannah.”

Phil sat up at that. “Interesting. Jeremy said that they weren’t having any financial difficulties.”

“Why would Jeremy lie about that?”

“Pride. Or something a little less out of the ordinary.”

“Well, Hannah did say that they seemed to get back on track. So maybe it all worked itself out,” I said.

“Maybe,” Phil said, although he didn’t sound convinced. I pulled out the piece of paper that I’d stuffed into my pockets.

“I found this in Reece’s locker in the employee’s area,” I said. It had wrinkled up in my pocket, so I carefully smoothed it out to reveal a phone number. Phil raised his eyebrows, so I pulled out my phone, carefully dialling it on speakerphone.

It rang for a few minutes and then the nice recorded lady’s voice informed us that a voice mailbox had not yet been set up.

“Hm,” Phil said and held out his hand for the paper. I dropped it into his palm.

“Are you going to use your investigator magic on that?” I asked.

“I’ll certainly try,” he said.

“What’s up next? Ex-wife?” I said.

“Ex-wife,” Phil agreed.

Nadia Reddy worked not far from Cherry’s chambers, although her business didn’t involve any m’lud-ing. Apparently, she was a saleswoman for one of those software companies that do important things that run our lives, but that may as well be gibberish for all that I can understand.

Phil had looked her up ahead of time. She’d been salesperson of the month more than a few times. Seemed decent at her job. She and Reece were married for three years and going by her facebook page, together for six.”

I whistled. I opened my mouth to make a smart comment about what kind of arse would flaunt his bit on the side to someone he’d been together with for so long and then promptly shut it. No need to bring up the mysterious and cheating Mark.

Phil must have caught what I was going to say because he went impassive, more granite-like than usual, and he scowled down at the wheel.

“Hey, c’mere,” I said and I pulled him over towards me for a kiss, road safety be damned.

We met Nadia in one of those trendy gastropubs near her work where we were seated at a table and although you could see other people, it didn’t really seem to be a space designed for mingling and I felt a little underdressed.

Phil, of course, looked right at home.

Nadia slid into the seat opposite us a few minutes later. She looked very smart, her hair softly waved and her make-up subtle but nice.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Phil said. “I’m Phil Morrison and this is my partner, Tom Paretski.”

Nadia gave us an exasperated smile. “If I’m going to talk about my ex-husband, I’m going to first need a drink.”

As if on cue, a waiter swooped by and took our orders before disappearing back into the ambiance of the pub. We made small talk about the weather and the storm that had turned St. Albans upside down while we waited for drinks. I even got her to laugh when I recounted our arboreal misfortune. She was in as good of a mood as could be when her martini and our pints were delivered.

“So I suppose you want to know all about Reece,” Nadia said.

“Let’s start with how long you two were together,” Phil said.

“Too long,” Nadia said. “Almost six years. We were married for three, although part of that was because it took so bloody long to get the divorce finalized. What a bastard.” She took a long sip of her martini. “I didn’t kill him—although sometimes I wish that I would have. He was just such a complete arse and I just let it happen.”

“What was the final straw?” I asked.

Nadia snorted. “I should probably say that it was when I found all the texts and nudes between him and half a dozen other women. But even when I kicked him out, I was still thinking that maybe he’d realize that he needed to change. Maybe this was the impetus to turn his life around. It’s so embarrassing to say out loud. So really, it was when he showed up with that tart at a friend’s birthday. We’d been split up for two weeks and he just flaunted it in his face. If I was going to kill him, it would have been that night. And no one would have blamed me.”

“Do you know anyone who would have wanted to kill Reece?” Phil asked.

Nadia shrugged and took another sip. “In the abstract, sure. He could be so vindictive sometimes. I accidentally donated some of his clothing to Oxfam one year—it had just been mixed up with my clothing. He then threw away some of my nice clothing. He claimed it was an accident but…he never let anyone get the better of him, for however he defined better. Although, I suppose that someone finally did.”

“What about the woman that he started dating after you—do you know how he treated her?” Phil asked.

Nadia rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and gave a dry laugh. “Her family is full minted. Money out of their ears. Even Reece knows when he’s managed to stumble onto a good thing.” Nadia thought for another second. “Also, Reece had given out quite a few loans to people—wasn’t afraid to lord it over their heads.”

We chatted through another round of drinks, but Nadia didn’t have too much that was helpful. And even though she did have some motive—no one likes when their partner cheats on them—it had been too long. And she didn’t seem like the sort to do it. It felt like we were back to the start of the race.

Phil took over the investigation for the next few days, although even he wasn’t able to make too much progress. He also had his other cases—a few cheating spouses cases, another one for insurance fraud. 

I called up Dave the night before Reece’s funeral. Phil and I had talked it over and even though it seemed unlikely that it would turn up anything significant, it would be the best chance that we had to see who else was in Reece’s life.

“How is the case going?” I asked.

“You know that I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Dave grumbled. “You are lucky that I’m such a bleeding heart here.”

“Maybe it’s all the fatherhood,” I said.

“You are going to owe me so much babysitting one day,” Dave said.

“I’m always happy to watch the nipper,” I said. “Although I’m not sure how happy Jenn’ll be with me watching him.”

“Don’t I know it,” Dave said. “Well, there hasn’t been much progress on the case—although the lads are still chasing down a few leads. Unfortunately for a bloke like Reece there are almost too many people with reasons enough.” He sighed. “Now, I’m not saying that Phil isn’t off the hook, but he isn’t exactly on it either, which is why I expect you called.”

I brightened at that. “You’re the best, mate,” I said. I could hear Dave roll his eyes even over the phone.

“Now that I’ve shared that, don’t do anything stupid, as I know you have a real talent for it,” Dave said.

“Absolutely,” I said.

Phil and I arrived at Reece’s funeral with time to spare. It was a nice church on the outskirts of St. Albans—not as big as Greg’s church, but nothing to sneeze at. Phil and I made our way over to Mrs. Wells to offer our condolences again, who was standing near the front of the church with the priest and what must have been one of Reece’s brothers. She hugged Phil very tightly for a moment while Phil stood there awkwardly, ultimately bringing up a hand to pat her gently.

“Oh, bless you,” she said when she finally stepped back. She wiped furiously at her eyes. “You were always such a good friend to Reece.”

Before either of us could react to that, another guest came up to talk to her and Phil and I made our escape.

“I don’t suppose that you can feel anything here,” Phil said. I tried to see if I could, but there was just too many people and even if I had been able to find something, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t have been related to Reece in the slightest. He hadn’t seemed like a real church going fellow.

“Phil? Phil Morrison? Is that you?” A voice called out. Phil and I turned to see Ryan, another of Phil’s mates from way back when. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and excused myself before I could get caught in their reunion.

Near the entrance to the church, I ran into John. He was a hard guy to miss and even though he didn’t look all that pleased about seeing me, I didn’t let that stop me. “John, nice to see you,” I said.

“Tom was it?” John said.

I nodded. “Seems like a pretty big turnout.”

John shrugged. “No credit to Reece. I’m here to support Amelia—Mrs. Wells.” I must have given John a look because his face reddened and he cleared his throat. “She’s a lovely lady and didn’t deserve what Reece would put her through. Although fat luck you’d have telling her that.”

I guess Phil had really been correct.

We moved into safer conversational waters until John went still, his face paling as his gaze caught on someone. I followed his eyeline to a girl in her mid-twenties who was wearing a deep red dress and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. The girlfriend? It must have been.

But that wasn’t who John was staring at. Instead, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the guy next to her—he was fairly fit, but nothing that I would have thought would make John, bodybuilder extraordinaire, look like he was about to start bricking it.

“Who is that?” I asked.

John shook himself. “Oh, that’s Jennifer’s brother, Harry.” He deliberately turned and fastidiously looked at the front of the church. “I should probably go sit down now.”

Something about how John was scared of this guy started setting off alarms. I had the craziest urge to do something and I looked around for Phil before I plunged into the deep of it. Of course, at the moment that I most wanted Phil around, Phil had completely disappeared into the crowd. I shot him a quick text and hoped that he would get it. 

Then, keeping my eye on Harry, standing there next to Jennifer, I pulled out my phone and went back to the call that Phil and I had made after visiting Mate’s Bet. I pressed the number. It started ringing. A moment later, a muffled ring tone came from the pocket inside Harry’s jacket.

I watched Harry take it out and frown at it before he silenced it. And then he looked up and made eye contact with me, phone stupidly pressed next to my ear.

I’m not sure what my face conveyed, but Harry took a step forward, his face darkening, and I immediately turned around and started moving as quickly as I could towards the front of the church. I burst out of the front—looking quickly both ways trying to figure out where I should run to before I heard heavy steps on my heels and took off towards the right.

We were on the outskirts of St. Albans, so there wasn’t a lot around—or at least no immediately convenient hiding spots—mainly just forested park area—but I took off into it anyways, running as fast as my hip would let me.

I quickly passed a small parish garden and risked throwing a look back behind me. Harry, was right on my heels and he looked pissed. I tried ducking into the cemetery, but before I could get much farther, Harry had grabbed my shirt and pushed me up against one of the crumbling gravestones.

“Who the fuck are you and how the fuck did you get that number?” Harry said, his face much too close for comfort.

“Tom Paretski,” I squeaked out. “And it must have just been a wrong number.”

Harry evaluated me closely. “No, I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “So I’ll give you one more chance and then I’ll get angry.”

I swallowed. “Er, well, Reece was a bit of a mate, and I just happened to see that he’d left that number somewhere. I was just curious. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No, that’s not quite right either,” Harry said and then calmly as if he were just stretching, he punched me in the pit of my stomach. I immediately bowed over, pain radiating everywhere, and found myself on the floor, desperately out of breath.

“Did Reece give you money as well?” Harry asked. “That fucking piece of shite.”

“No,” I said and then Harry kicked me. I went down hard. My mind was frantically racing, trying to think of a way out of this. Why hadn’t I just held off on calling the number?

“Look, this has all been a misunderstanding,” I said.

“Oh, I bet,” Harry said, his voice mocking. “If I have to, I’ll teach you the same lesson that I taught Reece.”

I grimaced. There it was. I prayed for something, anything. I did not want to die in a cemetery outside of a church that my husband was in, blissfully unaware of what I had gotten myself into.

But then, like I’d summoned him directly with my thoughts, Phil was running towards us from the entrance of the cemetery and as Harry turned to face him, I kicked my good leg out and it connected with his foot, so that when Phil punched him in the face, Harry went down.

Phil was on top of him in a moment, his arms locked around Harry’s neck and although Harry struggled, Phil had the advantage. After what felt like an hour, Harry finally slumped in Phil’s arms and went boneless on the ground.

“Are you ok?” Phil asked, releasing Harry and gently helping me up. Everything hurt, but it could have been so much worse. I threw my arms around Phi.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier to see you.”

When Dave and his team showed up, Dave gave me a dirty look but pulled me aside after they’d trussed up Harry and carted him away.

“I swear to God, Paretski,” Dave said. “You can’t leave well enough alone.”

“Did he kill Reece?” I asked.

Dave sighed. “It looks like he’d loaned Reece quite a bit of money due to his sister’s relationship with Reece. It seems like he reached a breaking point.”

“Yeah, I would say so,” I tried to say lightly.

“Jesus Christ, Morrison, take your husband home and don’t let him leave,” Dave said.

Phil was only too happy to oblige.


End file.
